The Admiral's Daughter
by olgatheodora
Summary: The first rule: never flirt with the admiral's daughter. Sequel to If Not, Winter.


AN: Bill made me write this.

Sequel to _If Not, Winter_. This piece will make absolutely no sense without prior knowledge of _Winter_.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to ghoulsis and deepforestowl, my fabulous betas. Also, a tip of the hat to _The Slipper and the Rose_ for the song "Position and Positioning," which helped to inspire this story.

***

_The fleet would be talking about the sight for weeks, if not months: stalwart Admiral Adama, who was (let us be frank) getting on in years, running through the hallway to the flight deck as if the entire Cylon nation waited at his destination and he had the last bomb in the universe. Several pilots hit the floor as he blazed past, and a few thoughtful souls made a dash for the infirmary "just in case."_

_Those remaining in the hall had little time to ponder and discuss this latest mystery, because mere seconds after the Admiral passed they heard something that went a long way toward clearing up the matter._

_"DADDY!" came a plaintive cry, as Clotho Adama hobbled as fast as she could with a twisted ankle and crutch after her father._

_"Daddy, don't toss him out the airlock!"_

* * *

When Bill Adama was a young pilot, the first warning that was given to every upstart new recruit was: _never flirt with the admiral's daughter._ Flirting with the admiral's daughter would get you sent to the most poor, pitiful, backwater post in existence. If the planet in question was a swamp, or existed in a state of weather extremes throughout the whole of the year, even better.

Frakking with the admiral's daughter was an automatic death sentence, all things concerned.

Bill found that he now identified very well with the admirals of his youth, because for the past sixteen years, the mere thought of any boy or man touching his daughter in a way that might lead to being fruitful and multiplying was enough to make him trigger happy.

Unfortunately for him, his little girl- his bright, beautiful, temperamental daughter, who he was _sure_ had been only five yesterday- had somehow managed to slip beneath his radar and engage in illicit relations with a boy that Bill would kill, but restrained himself from doing so for one reason only: Clotho was fruitful, and multiplying had been accomplished.

Also, Laura claimed to be fond of the little despoiler.

Still, it was only the fact that the young man had a duty to Bill's entirely-too-young daughter that kept his heart beating. Intellectually, Bill knew that in two years Clotho would have been under pressure to begin procreating anyway (President Miller's population building tactics stopped barely short of harassment), but those two years represented a great deal of _time_.

Bill was suddenly feeling very old, which he hadn't felt when Lee and Kara had presented him with his first grandchild- named William, naturally. He hadn't even felt old when their daughter was born, or when the entire brood and Clotho had begun tripping merrily into their teenage years ("slouching moodily" was only applicable to roughly half the group). But now, the surprise child of his elder years was seven months away from giving him his third grandchild, and he felt his bones ache.

"You're really mad, aren't you?" her voice asked in the dark from across the room, and he felt Laura shift beside him in wakeful silence. His wife had taken the blow somewhat better than himself, all concerned: after her initial fit (his desk chair would never be the same again), her fury had subsided into thoughtful reflection, marred only by the obvious fact that beneath the surface lurked the lecture of the millennium for the damn despoiler.

He wasn't sure how to answer. Since her birth, he had been firmly of the opinion that she could do no wrong, even though Lee often (truthfully) claimed that this was a double standard. After all, Lee did plenty of things wrong, and his father had noted every one of them. Clotho, on the other hand, had booby-trapped crew quarters, snuck into dangerous and off-limit areas, and generally run amuck with her friends her entire life, and Bill's responses had been decidedly gentler.

_I'm disappointed_. Well, he was… but more so in the boy.

_I hate your boyfriend_. Unfortunately, before the revelation, Bill had found much to approve of in him.

_I love you and I can't get past my image of you as a little girl_. Absolutely true, but too much truth to admit aloud.

Laura answered for him. "You're very young."

There was no arguing with that particular point, and from the silence in the room, Clotho knew it. If Bill knew his daughter- and he did- she was probably trying to keep herself from responding, 'And you were very old.'

Also a point.

"Mumsie," Clotho said, using the name that she only used when she was feeling both frustrated with and fond of her mother, "Mumsie, I believe you once told Daddy that if the human race were going to survive-"

Bill should have known that she would pull out this quote.

"-then they'd _better start having babies_."

Laura went rigid beside him, and he had a moment where he envisioned a full-out screaming fight.

When she burst out laughing, he felt disappointed: on the one hand, he preferred his family happy and getting along (and as they lived together in one room, getting along was an imperative), on the other, now that Laura had fallen for the absurdity of the situation, he no longer felt free to vent his bewilderment and grief.

Knowing this, he said the only thing that he felt he could say.

"Does this mean I'm not allowed to toss the Tyrol boy out the airlock?"

Clotho laughed from across the room, and he thought that their quarters would feel just a bit emptier when she was no longer around to fill them. "I am rather fond of him, Daddy."

Galen better hope that she _continued_ to be fond of him, and for the sake of his own skin the boy had better continue to _worship_ her.

Laura still shook with silent laughter, and she cuddled closer to him and buried her face in his shirt. He stroked her hair, thinking that sixteen years had been much too short.

* * *

When Clotho had been a baby, her crib had stood next to his desk. This had been his decision, and it had worked: he could deal with paperwork and keep his daughter entertained or soothed at the same time. It was sentiment and space limitations that kept Clotho's bed next to his desk for the next sixteen years. When she left to form another family, as children tend to do, the empty space where her bed had been distracted him from his work. The sight was odd, and awkward, and bordered on wrong. He found himself wondering when he had lost another child.

Meanwhile, Clotho grew. And grew. She wasn't a particularly tall girl, and there were times when Bill wondered if she would eventually be the same height horizontally as she was vertically- a thought he had mentioned aloud once, and had been roundly berated for by Laura.

Kara had seemed to find it funny, though. After his wife had stalked off, lecture delivered, Starbuck had sidled up to him with a sly grin on her face.

"Too bad I never taught her how to fly." She might have dimpled, but Bill couldn't be sure. "But at least I taught her how to shoot."

"I wish she had shot the despoiler." It lacked the same heat he might have given the statement a month or so before.

"You couldn't have kept her your little girl forever. Overly-repressed children have a nasty way of striking back."

"Like joining the army and gambling to excess?"

It was a low blow, but she seemed to expect it. "You must like me more than I thought. I can think of at least a half-dozen worse things that you could have mentioned."

"I'm merciful."

"Nicholas thinks so, too." She strode off, whistling, and Bill found himself grateful that growing up hadn't changed her sense of humor.

Initial shock and disturbance aside, Laura seemed to have come to terms with the whole matter.

"It would have happened eventually," she told him one night, a few weeks after Clotho and her things had ceased to become obstacles in day to day living. "We ran out of contraceptives- it must have been eight or so years ago, at least."

"But _sixteen?_"

"Don't you remember being sixteen?"

He would rather not admit how he had acted at sixteen.

* * *

"Is that a crib?"

Bill looked up from his work, and glanced briefly over at the small bed next to his desk. "It appears to be."

Laura looked at him thoughtfully for a long moment, their newest granddaughter tucked safely in her arms. He gave her a fleeting look, and saw a glimmer of satisfaction in her eyes before turning back to his paperwork.

"Bill," she said, "you really are the sweetest man."

He hid his smile. "I'll let you continue to think that, dear."

Even without looking he knew that she was smirking. As he continued to apply himself to the contents of his inbox (at about half the pace as usual), she laid their granddaughter into the newly set-up crib and wandered to the couch with the air of someone who wasn't paying any attention to him at all.

She was particularly good at that act, he thought.

Kore stared up at him with alert eyes, and like her grandmother and mother, he thought he detected a hint of humor in her expression. When he reached out to stroke her cheek, she grabbed his little finger and gave him a triumphant look.

"A suggestion," he said quietly, grinning. "Please, not sixteen."

From across the room, Laura began laughing, and Kore looked like she might be smiling.

Even at such a tender age, she thought he was funny.

1/1


End file.
